A Still Life Painting Party

Why should kids get to have all the fun? I’m a sucker for a costume, a themed party, cute pajama sets, the list goes on. And I’ve decided, just because I’m technically an adult, doesn’t mean that I have to give those things up. My pajama game is strong, Brendan and I dress up for Halloween, Renaissance Faire, Oktoberfest (really any occasion will do) and so I’ve decided in the last couple of years that birthday parties should be no exception! A few years ago I threw myself a “Pancake and PJs” birthday party, requesting all my friends to wear cute pajamas and come over for brunch. You bet there was a balloon arch too.

This year, I thought, why not have an activity (on top of the food and coordinating outfit color scheme, of course). I’d been wanting to practice my painting skills and particularly had wanted to try my hand at still lifes and so I thought why not use my birthday as an excuse to have everyone tap into their creative sides and do a little painting.

Getting everything together was pretty simple! I knew I wanted to use oil paints because that’s what I’m most familiar with and find easiest — oils are much more forgiving than acrylic since they don’t dry right away so it’s simpler to correct mistake and also to blend! I got a fresh batch of small oil paint tubes, plenty for us to share amongst the 5 of us. I also picked up these 8x8 canvases. The smaller size made it feel more achievable to actually finish a painting in one session. We already had these brushes along with a bunch of others in various sizes and palette paper to put all our paints on. I got these cute little easels that aren’t necessarily the best for painting, but look cute and minimal for table decoration and were something expensive that I thought I could use in the future for other things.

After that I left it up to my friends what they wanted to paint. I had used Pinterest to pin a bunch of still life inspirations they could look through or look things up themselves. One of my friends set up a real still life and painted from that. I recommended going simple if you’d never painted before, a single piece of fruit with a simple background etc. My other tip was to search for a painting to recreate, since then it’s easier to see the brushstrokes someone else chose to make rather than starting from a photograph. Mostly I just encouraged people to have fun, not worry too much about the end product, but just enjoy the process (I hope they did!).

The last thing you’ll need (and my least favorite part) is a paint thinner for clean up. Oil paints are oil-based, meaning not water based, so you’ll need to soak the brushes in a bit of paint thinner like turpentine to clean them before washing.

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